When I was a freshman, because of COVID, I hadn’t seen anybody for two years, and then coming to school, seeing everyone gigantic, it was kind of surreal.
During my freshman and sophomore years, I didn’t know how to study effectively, but it didn’t really affect me because I wasn’t taking any AP classes. My junior year, I decided to take AP Biology, so I actually had to study. I would take Ms. Koehler’s slides, I would make my mom sit down, and I would explain the whole lecture to her the night before the test. This year I’m taking AP Chemistry, and to study I’m doing a lot of practice problems. Study methods depend on the subject: If you need to know the concepts, explain it to someone, but if it’s calculation based, then do practice problems.
For the freshman benchmark project, Change, I liked my group and we worked well together. Writing papers and giving formal presentations were definitely an interesting introduction to high school. Also, I was coming back from COVID, so the service part of Change helped me get re-adjusted to in-person interactions as well. I thought WIP was a bit more annoying, but it prepared me for AP English my junior year. Also QUEST will be helpful since skills we use for it such as contacting professors, writing papers, and reading academic papers aren’t really taught in college, but are still expected of us.
Things I like about Irvington are the social interactions with my friends, and some of the classes, such as AP Bio, AP Psych, and AP Chem. I have really great friends who are very supportive. I also have a lot of unexpectedly empathetic teachers that I can talk to whether or not I am still in their class anymore. One thing I don’t like about Irvington is the physical layout and its growing competitiveness. As for me, I’m a lot less scared now than as a freshman.
Despite all the challenges in high school, I will still miss a lot of things about Irvington. Some of the teachers are genuinely the sweetest people, so I’ll definitely miss them. Of course I’ll also miss my friends, including the friends who are in grades younger than me.
Some advice is because you can handle a lot more than you think, but keep in mind that burnout is very real, so it’s important to have a balance in your life. Make sure to go to all of the events like Homecoming and Spring Fling, because looking back, those are the things you’ll remember. You don’t want your whole high school to be a blur of homework without having things you looked forward to.
